Doing the “Right Thing”? Understanding Why Rape Victim-Survivors Report to the Police

Background

Existing research and policy initiatives addressing rape reporting have coalesced around the questions of why women are reluctant to report, what the barriers to reporting may be, and how they might be overcome in order that victim-survivors access “justice” (see Brown, 2011; Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, & Turner, 2003; Kelly, Lovett, & Regan, 2005; Kilpatrick, Resnick, Ruggiero, Conoscenti, & McCauley, 2007; Weiss, 2010). These are understandable concerns given that rates of reporting for rape and sexual assault are notoriously low across a range of jurisdictions. In Scotland, it is estimated that only one in five rapes are reported to the police (Scottish Government, 2016) and a similar picture has emerged elsewhere in the United Kingdom (Hohl & Stanko, 2015), other European countries (Kelly, 2002), and the United States (Fisher et al., 2003; Weiss, 2011). However, the enduring research and policy preoccupation with the problem of underreporting to the police appears to have obscured the question of why victim-survivors do report. Arguably, the answer to this question is frequently assumed and grounded in social acceptance of the idea that victims of serious sexual offenses, and indeed other crimes, will rightfully seek and access “justice” via the criminal justice system. In short, reporting is deemed to be both a right belonging to victim-survivors and the “right thing” for them to do.

Dominant public narratives relating to rape reporting, however, typically represent a dichotomy founded upon whether a complaint (and implicitly, the complainer) is one that considered to be “genuine.” For those considered “credible” (Barn & Kumari, 2015; Ellison & Munro, 2009), there is an implicit assumption that “justice”—via a robust criminal justice response—should be sought. This narrative of the rightful pursuit of “justice,” however, coexists alongside an ongoing discourse about women who “cry rape,” making false accusations of rape against innocent men in an act of malice, a bid to conceal their active participation in sexual (mis)conduct, or the exercise of revenge against a former lover (Kelly, 2010; Lisak, Gardinier, Nicksa, & Cote, 2010). This discourse is grounded in historical construction of women’s word as “beyond belief” (Jordan, 2004, p. 33). Kelly (2010) argues that historical disbelief of women’s accounts has become “sedimented into the cultures” of criminal justice systems despite a wealth of empirical evidence which disputes the notion that women commonly “cry rape” (see Lisak et al., 2010, for a review of studies measuring the scale of false allegations of rape).

It also remains the case that reports of rape rarely translate into convictions (Daly & Bouhours, 2010; Hohl & Stanko, 2015) and the gulf between the two has been described as the “justice gap” (Temkin & Krahé, 2008, p. 1). The long-standing failure of criminal justice systems to address the needs of those who have experienced sexual violence, despite considerable international effort to improve responses, is well documented (Hohl & Stanko, 2015; Kelly et al., 2005; McGlynn, Downes, & Westmarland, 2016; Smith & Skinner, 2012). Moreover, the additional stress experienced by rape victim-survivors due to “secondary victimization,” whereby the investigative and prosecutorial process exacerbates the trauma of rape through, for example, the victim-survivor reliving the experience, having to face the abuser, encounter disbelief, and endure a traumatic cross-examination process, is well recognized (Adler, 1987; Bottoms & Roberts, 2010; B. Brown, Burman, & Jamieson, 1993; Kelly et al., 2005). Within this highly problematic context, the reason why anyone would want to report rape or sexual assault is perhaps a curious question. Indeed, Taylor and Norma (2012) contend that the sometimes hostile reactions of criminal justice agencies to reports of sexual assault may make women’s decision to report seem irrational.

Nonetheless, there has been an exponential increase in rape reporting rates in Scotland and elsewhere since the 1980s, which is thought to be indicative of victim-survivors moving from a position of powerlessness and silence (Ullman, 2010) to becoming more willing and able to report as the result of a raft of law, policy, and practice reform (Burman & Brooks-Hay, 2018; Temkin & Krahé, 2008). Indeed, the police in many jurisdictions have introduced improvements to their response to rape, including enhanced training, specialist policing roles and teams (McMillan, 2015; Westmarland, Aznarez, Brown, & Kirkham, 2012), collaboration with specialist NGOs (Brooks-Hay & Burman, 2017; Brooks-Hay, Burman, Bradley, & Kyle, 2018), and third-party reporting mechanisms. However, existing analysis of why rape reporting has increased stops short of asking why any victim-survivor may report in the first instance or, crucially, what their expectations of the ensuing process are.

Reasons for Reporting to the Police: Existing Research

The reasons why an individual might report a crime are varied and complex (Goudriaan, 2006; Ménard, 2003; Tarling & Morris, 2010; Tolsma, Blaauw, & Te Grotenhuis, 2012). A notable attempt to provide a common framework for understanding the mobilization of the law, including why victims of different types of crime call upon criminal justice agencies, was developed by Black (1976). According to Black’s (1976) Theory of the Behavior of Law, the “amount” of law mobilized can be measured (e.g., in terms of report, arrest, and prosecution) and predicted by five aspects of social life: stratification, morphology, culture, organization, and social control. These aspects of social life incorporate variables such as victim/offender age or race (stratification), relationship between offender and victim (morphology), level of education (culture), number of perpetrators (organization), and time or location of the offense (social control). Black’s theory, however, has been described as having limited utility in the context of rape reporting (Clay-Warner & McMahon-Howard, 2009); while the five aspects of social life identified by Black appear to impact on the likelihood of reporting, some of their effects appear to operate in a different direction to that predicted, as outlined in the discussion of victim/case characteristics and situational factors below. The theory has also been critiqued following empirical testing, due to its overreliance on social structural factors (Avakame, Fyfe, & McCoy, 1999) at the expense of individual and cultural factors.

To elucidate the decision-making processes of individual victims, Goudriaan (2006) harnesses the logic of reporting within a socioecological model, whereby it is assumed that if the expected benefits of reporting outweigh the expected costs, then individuals (as rational actors) are likely to report a crime. The expected costs and benefits are influenced by victim, offender, and offense characteristics, recognizing that victims and individuals embedded within social contexts (Ménard, 2003) and that the benefits of reporting crime may be emotional or material (Tolsma et al., 2012). Reporting may, for example, facilitate retribution through the apprehension and eventual punishment of the offender. This, in turn, may enhance victim safety and emotional recovery while acting as deterrence against future offending. Meanwhile, material “benefits” may be secured in cases where a police report is made as part of a pragmatic decision to progress claims for compensation or insurance (Tarling & Morris, 2010). However, Tarling and Morris (2010) also note that some victims feel that they have a “public duty” to report crimes (p. 475).

While Goudriaan’s (2006) socioecological model and other overarching analyses of reporting behavior offer some insight into influential factors and decision-making processes when it comes to reporting crime, arguably sexual (and domestic) offenses merit particular consideration as they have unique characteristics and emotional impacts (Lizotte, 1985); hence, they are “not like other crimes” (Herman, 2005, p. 573). Domestic and sexual crimes, as forms of gender-based violence, share a number of commonalities and often co-occur in abusive relationships where sexual violence is part of a broader range of abusive behavior. These also offenses that are consistently underreported in comparison with other crimes (Scottish Government, 2016; Tolsma et al., 2012).

A valuable body of research has explored why domestic abuse is reported to the police (see Hirschel & Hutchison, 2003; Holder & Daly, 2018; Hoyle & Sanders, 2000; Lewis, Dobash, & Dobash, 2000; Novisky & Peralta, 2015). Debate about whether victims of domestic abuse engage with the criminal justice system to gain safety or respite from the abuse, rather than the punishment of the perpetrator, is central to this body of work. As a form of gender-based violence, which may include rape, studies focusing on domestic abuse offer some insight into the rationale for reporting of sexual offenses, although the sustained nature of domestic abuse and the victim’s relationship with the abuser limit the transferability of findings between these related but different offenses.

Studies concerned specifically with reporting rape and sexual assault can be broadly categorized in two ways: first, quantitative research examining the victim and case characteristics that are most likely to predict a report being made, and second, qualitative research exploring the motivations of victim-survivors who report to the police. Quantitative studies concerned with victim characteristics that are associated with reporting suggest that older victims are more likely to report than younger victims (Gartner & Macmillan, 1995), while higher incomes and education are negatively related to reporting (Avakame et al., 1999; Lizotte, 1985; Pino & Meier, 1999). With regard to race, White women are typically identified as those most likely to report the police (Feldman-Summers & Ashworth, 1981; Lizotte, 1985). Victim ability to recall the incident clearly and perceived seriousness of the assault are also positively associated with reporting (Sabina & Ho, 2014), as is the level of female representation within law enforcement agencies (Schuck, 2018).

Studies seeking to predict the likelihood of reporting to the police have also identified a range of situational factors which are positively related to this outcome, including the assailant being a stranger (Fisher et al., 2003; Hohl & Stanko, 2015; Lizotte, 1985), the use of weapons or physical force and significant additional physical injury (Bachman, 1998; DuMont, Miller, & Myhr, 2003), the assault taking place in a public or unfamiliar location (Clay-Warner & McMahon-Howard, 2009; Fisher et al., 2003), and the assault being committed by multiple offenders or offenders of a different race to that of the victim (Sabina & Ho, 2014). Taken together, this body of evidence points to the finding that the “types” of rape most likely to be reported are those akin to “classic rape” (Williams, 1984) or “real rape” (Estrich, 1987), that is, the assault coalesces with the culturally accepted stereotype of rape as highlighted by feminist scholars (Clay-Warner & McMahon-Howard, 2009).

Although these quantitative studies provide important insights into cultural acceptance of what constitutes rape and victim willingness to engage with the police or other authorities, they offer limited insights into why victim-survivors report to the police or how this might relate to their expectations of the ensuing process. Some of these studies also rely upon hypothetical scenarios to ascertain what participants’ reporting intentions would be following a rape or sexual assault (e.g., Feldman-Summers & Ashworth, 1981; Moore & Baker, 2018). Arguably, the reality of experiencing sexual violence and the decision-making process in its aftermath is far more complex that hypothetical scenarios can ever depict.

Qualitative studies, currently conducted primarily in the United States and Australia, offer a more nuanced understanding of this issue. In an examination of the reasons why a sample of 20 rape victim-survivors participated in the criminal justice system in the United States, Patterson and Campbell (2010) identified the prevention of the offender from raping other women or themselves as the main reason factored into initial decisions to report to the police. A notable limitation of Patterson and Campbell’s study, however, is its restrictive focus on victim-survivors reporting very recent rape. It is likely that their results may have differed because they had included participants who had delayed reporting, as is common when reporting sexual offenses (Brooks-Hay et al., 2018; Brooks-Hay, Burman, & Kyle, 2015; Hohl & Stanko, 2015). Nonetheless, Patterson and Campbell’s findings resonate with earlier U.S. studies by Herman (2005), Kilpatrick et al. (2007), and Konradi (2007), each of which identified safety and the prevention of future assaults on themselves and others as key factors.

Herman’s (2005) study of 22 victim-survivors of domestic and sexual offenses (11 of whom had filed a criminal complaint) is particularly insightful. Herman (2005) concluded that participants primarily sought incapacitation and exposure of the offender as opposed to other conventional aims of criminal justice—deterrence, retribution, or rehabilitation. The main purpose of exposing offenders was to seek validation from friends, family, and community of the harms inflicted; this was also a prominent theme identified by Demers, Roberts, Bennett, and Banyard (2017) in a study with 13 victim-survivors of sexual assault and partner abuse on a U.S. college campus. Similarly, Taylor and Norma (2012) concur that victim-survivors’ drive to hold perpetrators accountable was rooted in their desire to protect others rather seeking punishment or retribution. The desire to protect others was articulated by a third of rape survivors interviewed by Jan Jordan (2001) in New Zealand and described by Taylor and Norma (2012) as an “ever-present” theme within their interviews with 60 women who had reported sexual assault to the police in Victoria, Australia. Similarly, in an earlier Australian study with more than 30 survivors of sexual assault, Lievore (2005) identified the safety of themselves and other women as key factors in reporting within a list of 13 reasons why victim-survivors contact the police.

Theoretically, Taylor and Norma (2012) go beyond other accounts of the reasons why victim-survivors report by conceptualizing the motivation to report as “symbolic protest” underpinned by a sense of civic duty and a disregard for the personal difficulties that they may encounter as a result of taking this action. However, other studies refer to the role that third parties (e.g., friends, relatives, counselors, or state agencies) play in facilitating or making a report on behalf of the victim-survivor, although this is not a theme identified by Taylor and Norma (2012). Kilpatrick et al. (2007), for example, found that some survivors (19%) consulted with other people (e.g., friends) about whether to report, and approximately half were encouraged to make a police report. Meanwhile, Konradi (2007) identified cases where third parties either helped victim-survivors to identify the incident as rape and strongly encouraged them to report the crime or contacted the police without the permission of the victim-survivor. Patterson and Campbell (2010) report that just over a quarter of participants were encouraged to report by others while a further quarter were given no choice in reporting due to others making the report on their behalf. With regard to the role that third parties play, Patterson and Campbell (2010) draw an important distinction between those who have “encouraged” victim-survivors to report and those who have taken this choice away from them; this is a distinction that merits further exploration.

Method

The findings presented in this article are drawn from in-depth qualitative interviews with female victim-survivors of rape and sexual assault conducted as part of two related evaluation studies: one focusing on a local pilot Rape Crisis advocacy service in Scotland and the other on a subsequent evaluation of a national Rape Crisis Scotland advocacy project. The advocacy projects were designed to provide dedicated support to victims-survivors engaging with the criminal justice system. Over the course of the two evaluation studies, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 female victims-survivors across Scotland who had reported rape or sexual assault to the police and used an advocacy support service. While the value of advocacy support to victim-survivors formed the primary focus of these interviews, important insights into the research question that forms the basis of the current article also emerged; that is, why rape and sexual assault victim-survivors report to the police.

Prior to approaching potential participants, ethical approval was granted by the research team’s institution. All participants were recruited via Rape Crisis Advocacy Workers. Although it is possible that the views and composition of this group of victim-survivors may differ from those recruited via alternative means, this method of recruitment was deemed to be the most ethically appropriate approach. Participants were women aged 16 to 65 years and all were White. Although this study did not seek to recruit representative samples of particular participants, the lack of racial diversity among participants is acknowledged as a limitation of the study.

Victim-survivors were interviewed when they were reaching the end of criminal justice proceedings and their contact with the advocacy project, although, in some cases, interviews were conducted before reaching this end point due to the timeframe of the evaluation studies (2015-2017). The offenses reported included rape (19), sexual assault (2), and child sexual abuse (3). Eleven of these cases related to recent assaults (reported within 1 week) and 13 were historical cases. Furthermore, almost half (11) of the cases occurred within the context of domestic abuse as defined in Scottish law (i.e., the perpetrator was a partner or ex-partner). In the remaining 13 cases, the perpetrator was an acquaintance in nine cases, and a family member in four cases.

The research focus and conduct was grounded within a feminist understanding of rape and sexual assault as a gendered offense underpinned by gender inequalities and power dynamics. A feminist methodological approach guided the conduct of the victim-survivor interviews. First, in recognizing that qualitative methods have been instrumental in giving women a voice, particularly in relation to male violence (Griffiths & Hanmer, 2005) (although it is acknowledged that qualitative research does not constitute a feminist methodology and feminist research is characterized by a multiplicity of methods, Reinharz, 1992). Second, attention was given to potential power differentials between the researcher and the researched (Stanley & Wise, 1993), and to the emotional well-being of both parties (Skinner, Hester, & Malos, 2005). Third, participants were able to exercise a degree of control over the conduct of the interview: the timing, length, and location of the interviews were determined by participants. In practice, most of the interviews took place within Rape Crisis premises as an identified “safe space.”

With the exception of one interview where the participant chose not to be audio-recorded, all interviews were transcribed verbatim by professional transcribers and recoded manually by the author in discussion with the research team (following the completion of both evaluation studies) to address the specific question of why victim-survivors report to the police. With regard to the data analysis, a three-stage process informed by grounded theory was adopted: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding (Strauss, 1987). Although a fully grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was not adopted during the research as data collection and analysis did not occur in parallel, managing the analysis and coding in this way allowed the generation of concepts and categories to remain close to, and emerge from, the data. During the initial open-coding process, data relevant to the research question were organized into key concepts and categories. At the axial coding stage, the data were revisited to refine and develop the links between the emergent themes. During the third phase of analysis, extracts from data, which best illustrate the main themes identified, were selected. This coding process was complimented by a framework matrix-based approach (Ritchie, Spencer, & O’Connor, 2003) to synthesize and chart data relating to individual participants; this was particularly important for highlighting connections (and contradictions) both within and across participants’ accounts.

Findings

Analysis of victim-survivor accounts revealed four key themes with regard to the reasons why they reported their rape and/or sexual assault to the police. These themes are explored below using verbatim extracts from participant interviews (with pseudonyms) to highlight key points. The first three themes discussed are individual and therapeutic reasons, perpetrator-orientated reasons, and social and moral responsibility. Notably, the majority of participants cited third party influences either within or driving their reasons for reporting. This, therefore, forms the fourth and final analytical theme.

Discussion

To re-cap on the findings presented, victim-survivor reasons for reporting can be categorized as being underpinned by individual and therapeutic reasons, perpetrator-orientated reasons, social and moral responsibility, and third-party influences. The validity of these findings is enhanced by the parallels that can be drawn with the relatively small evidence base on reasons for reporting sexual offenses in other jurisdictions, namely, that a desire and responsibility to protect others was most commonly cited as the reason for engaging with the criminal justice system (Herman, 2005; Kilpatrick et al., 2007; Konradi, 2007; Lievore, 2005; Patterson & Campbell, 2010; Taylor & Norma, 2012). Meanwhile, some victim-survivors reported for reasons that were grounded in the need to ensure their own safety, seek validation of the harms that they had experienced (Demers et al., 2017; Herman, 2005), or “move on” emotionally. Relatively few participants sought the punishment of the offender for retributive reasons (Herman, 2005) and the influential role of third parties was observed (Konradi, 2007; Patterson & Campbell, 2010; Taylor & Norma, 2012).

However, there are some important points of departure between the study findings and those of earlier research relating to the motivations for reporting, who the report was made by, and the nature of the assault(s) experienced. First, victim-survivors desire to “do the right thing” and take a stand against sexual violence emerged more strongly in the current study compared with earlier work. This theme merits further exploration in future research as it may reflect the contemporary cultural context, characterized by a resurgence in young women associating with feminist movements and high-profile social campaigns publicly challenging sexual harassment and violence (Burman & Brooks-Hay, 2018). It is also noteworthy that compared with studies addressing why domestic abuse is reported, there was a heightened focus on the protection of others rather than self-protection. Second, although earlier studies have noted the role of third parties in encouraging or actually making a report to the police (Kilpatrick et al., 2007; Konradi, 2007; Patterson & Campbell, 2010), this theme was particularly prominent within the current study with third parties influencing reporting in almost four of the five cases. Findings also point to victim-survivors also experiencing pressure to report—an experience that sits within a spectrum between positive encouragement on one hand or the complete removal of choice on the other. Third, marked differences were observed in the aspirations and determination associated with reporting between women who had experienced rape or sexual assault as part of historical, long term, or domestic abuse compared with women who had experienced recent assaults perpetrated by a someone less intimately known to them. The conceptual and policy implications of these findings within the current social and political context are discussed below.

Conclusion

Within the context of a politicized and expanded criminal justice response to rape and sexual assault, victim-survivors are apparently being put at the center of the justice process. However, we must critically question whether they are really being listened to, who is putting them there and to what end. These questions are all the more pertinent in view of the finding that victim-survivors may exercise limited agency in reporting and are likely to experience an “aspiration-reality gap” due to stubborn differences between the reasons and expectations attached to their reports and the reality of the ensuing criminal justice process and outcomes.

Within public narratives, it is often assumed that “genuine” victims-survivors of serious sexual offenses will rightfully seek and access “justice” via the punitive measures afforded by criminal justice system. The findings presented in this article, however, defy public narratives around rape reporting, indicating that the reality is far more complex. Furthermore, conventional narratives surrounding engagement with the criminal justice system points to a taken-for-granted notion of what justice is and a belief that it works, although this arguably remains a socially constructed ideal rather than the lived reality of most women’s experiences.

While criminal justice processes and outcomes clearly matter, understanding how and why victim-survivors start their criminal justice journey is an essential precursor to meeting their needs and conceptualizing their experiences. The concepts of “secondary victimization” and the “justice gap,” which have been instrumental in facilitating understanding of victim-survivor experiences of criminal justice processes and outcomes, are augmented and strengthened through appreciation of the “aspiration-reality” gap. Improving the criminal justice response to rape and sexual assault is a commendable goal, and one that should undoubtedly continue by addressing both procedural and distributive justice. However, the drive to improve responses should operate in tandem with greater understanding of, and respect for, the reasons why victim-survivors may or may not engage with the criminal justice process.

Future research on how, why, and to what extent rape and sexual assault come to the attention of the police should pay close attention to the observation that reported rapes are not the same as reports that victim-survivors have freely chosen to make. Reports initiated by third parties have particular implications for the impact of reporting on individual victim-survivors and their ability to remain engaged in the criminal justice process. There are also implications here for how rapes reported to the police (or indeed any authority) are counted; distinguishing between reports initiated by the victim-survivor and third parties merits consideration if trends in reporting are to be fully understood. Future work should also be attentive to the nuances of how experiencing rape or sexual assault in different contexts (e.g., as a recent one-off incident or as part of ongoing domestic abuse) affects victim-survivor ability and desire to engage with the criminal justice process, rather than viewing rape reports as a homogeneous category. Further exploration of the relationship between victim-survivor aspirations and experiences beyond the point of reporting, and how this may evolve as their journey through the system unfolds, is also required due to the likelihood of an aspiration-reality gap constituted by the troubled space between their hopes, expectations, needs, and lived experiences.